OpenMoko 高層專訪

jollen 發表於 July 25, 2007 11:31 AM

有別於傳統封閉生態系統的手機產業，OpenMoko完全是以新的觀念在做手機。以下是OpenMoko的高層專訪（譯文）。在 Youtube 網站上找到一則今年一月份的 OpenMoko 專訪影片，受訪對象是 OpenMoko 的 leader 'Sean'，影片網址：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRvtAAXTIlg

以下節錄專訪重點，以及中文翻譯。感謝 Chelsea 及 Will 的幫忙 ;-)

So, OpenMoko is the first integrated software stack for mobile phones that starts with the kernel and goes all the way to the application and it’s completely open source, completed with GPL base. It's the first time that application developers will be able to develop an application, royalty free, on a mobile communication platform.
OpenMoko是第一個針對行動電話的整合軟體架構，此架構採用Linux kernel，並且所有的應用程式也是基於Linux平臺來執行；而且，這是完全開放源碼，完全基於GPL版權的。這是第一個開發者可以在行動通訊平臺上發展免權利金的應用程式。

How we differ from other Linux phones?
跟其他Linux行動電話有什麼不同？

There are Motorola Linux phones out there now. They take the Linux kernel and they sort of just cramp this into a small device. The top layer is the middleware and the GUI in the application, that are really important for the whole ecosystem to be built, are not open in the spirit of Linux.
這邊也有Motorola的Linux行動電話。他們採用Linux kernel，並且只是這種將Linux放置於一個小型裝置。應用程式中，最上層是middleware與GUI，這對整個我們在建立的ecosystem來說是真的很重要的，但還沒有以Linux的精神公開出來。

Why it needs to be open?
為什麼需要開放？

Let me give you an example. Right now we’re talking, and one of the things the phone should be able to do is turn the microphone on and sense ambient noises to be able to determine whether or not there is a conversation in this room. So, if there was, you could be able to turn the ring-tone to silent. This is not possible if your phone was closed, only if it was open.
讓我舉一個例子，就我們現在提到的，手機應用要具備的事項之一就是開啟麥克風，並且感受週遭的聲音，能確認房間裡面是否有對話。所以，如果有的話，你就可以將手機的鈴聲調整安靜一點。如果你的手機是封閉系統，這就辦不到了，只有手機是開放的才有辦法。

What are the benefits?
好處是什麼呢？

And this is sort of the most unexpected success of this company. There is a lot of big name companies who are interested in this device who want to put their software application on top of it. For example, the Italian firefighting team wants to use this device to fight forest fires. In my opinion, the killer application is not so much an application, it’s called the application manager and this allows you to connect to two different feeds. Think of RSS for applications. One is a commercial feed, one is a community feed. The community is sort of the free for all. The commercial feed, these are applications, also free software, also open source software, that has been tested, ported and optimized by us. So if you are an end-user, you have access to thousands of applications that have been certified and tested, that won’t cause problems to your phone, you can just use them.
這就是這家公司的最不被預期能成功的特性。有許多大公司，都對我們的手機有興趣，他們想要放他們自己的軟體進來。例如，義大利的消防隊想要使用這個裝置來對抗森林大火。從我的觀點來說，殺手級應用程式並不是就只是應用程式而己，一個叫做application manager的東西，允許你連到二個不同的新聞供稿來源（feed）。試想RSS的應用程式。一個是商業性的，一個是社群提供的。社群的特性就是什麼都是免費的。商業性質的供稿來源，這些都是應用程式，是自由軟體，也是開放源碼軟體，這些軟體都被我們測試過、移植以及最佳化。因此，如果你是一個end-user，你會用到數以千計的應用程式，這些都是被認證與測試的，因此不會對你的電話造成傷害，你可以放心使用他們。

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OpenMoko 高層專訪